When my first child started preschool friends began asking me what high school she would go to. Seriously? I was totally unprepared for this. Why are people even thinking about it when their kids can’t even read and write the alphabet? Once she was in primary school the questions kept coming, more specifically on whether she might make it into an opportunity class or a selective high school. Ugghh.
If you can’t afford private schools then selective high schools have become a ‘holy grail’ for many parents (see Unnatural Selection, The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend Magazine, January 24, 2015).
Reflections of a selective high school old boy
I went to a selective high school in Sydney and so did the friend who asked me about my daughter in preschool. So I said, ‘I guess you’ll be sending your boys to the selective high school we went to?’ He confidently rejected the idea, and without any racist sentiment said, ‘fat chance mate, it’s full of Asian students who are being coached to gain a place; you and I wouldn’t stand a chance these days’.
In my day, getting into the selective high school did not need any entrance exam or coaching. There was some kind of selection based on your merit achieved at primary school, plus I recall that I had some beneficial connection with my father being an old boy, but that was it. These days, I don’t think being an old boy would cut it.
One question we should be asking is what are our motivations as parents? When we make a decision about a school, we are imposing our adult values and aspirations onto our kids. So its good to look deep and ask, ‘what are we ‘imposing’ on our kids that is reflected in the school we are working so hard to get them into?’ I reckon some of these values and aspirations could be found wanting and our kids health and welfare may suffer because of them later in life.
What's it really about? Money and prosperity
We tell ourselves it’s about giving our kids ‘choice’. We tell them it will enhance their choices of getting into the university of their choice. But it’s really about money; well paid careers. Of course giving our kid choice is true not just for those trying to crack the code entry to the selective high. It applies perhaps even more to those who afford the private schools and also those who just make the best of the locals. However, this can be a recipe for anxiety, depression and even suicide. If you want your kids to be happy, education has to be more than money, status or that thing you do with the rest of your life. In some ways, that means education has to be less.
As Jesus said,
‘Don’t worry, life is much more than what you will eat, wear… {or work}… but seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given you as well’ (Matthew 6:29-34).
In essence, I think we are teaching our kids to worry.
The pressure build of having to work out your career can be enormous. As I mentioned at the start of this post, it begins in preschool! For goodness sake! The anxiety it can create is really unhelpful. We lose sight of the value of learning and instead of education being about how to learn from the past, think for yourself and find solutions to the present; we dilute our kid’s education into passing exams so they can get a good entrance number to university. We encourage them to do subjects that do well but fail to ‘tick their boxes’. The chances of them finding work in later life that will be enjoyable is then further reduced as we push them to prepare for work that is well rewarded.
Work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and neither is the selective high school. There is more to life than what we eat and drink and wear. But I reckon our kids might never hear this and instead, worry.
